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Plea for Christian Education. 


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A PLEA FOR 
CHRISTIAN EDUCATION. 


AN ADDRESS BEFORE THE GEORGIA BAPTIST CON-. 
VENTION, AT VALDOSTA, MARCH 29, 1901.. 


PRESIDENT P. D. POLLOCK, 


»y MERCER UNIVERSITY, MACON, GA. 


PRICE, PER DOZEN, 20 CENTS. 


SUNDAY SCHOOL BOARD 
=== SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION, —— 
NASHVILLE, TENN. 


Di, Se A , 
377.) 
PI77 
P7244 


IG As 
[7 L/ 


A Plea for Christian Education. 


IN WHAT I shall say, I shall try to show: 
1. That liberal culture or complete edu- 
cation must include the religious element. 
2. That the State cannot provide this re- 
ligious element. 

3. That if higher education includes this reli- 
gious, or,as we would say,Christian element, it must 
be fostered and directed by Christian churches’ 

4. That there is a twofold responsibility on 
churches to foster higher education, namely, a 
responsibility to develop and perpetuate them- 
selves, and a responsibility to discharge their true 
function to society. 

5. What our relation to Mercer University is, 
and our present responsibility in this relation. 

These are the main propositions. 

Butler has said in substance that education is 
the adaptation of man to his environment, and - 
the development in him of capacity to control and 
modify his environment. 

Environment is of two kinds: physical and 
spiritual. Spiritual environment under another 
name is civilization. The adjustment of life to 
the forces and products of civilization, that come 
to us as inheritances from the past, is, therefore, 
the problem of education. The capacity to con- 
trol and modify these inheritances so as to pro- 


(3) 


4 A PLEA FOR CHRISTIAN EDUCATION. 


%* ke *% 


mote progress, is the peculiar problem of higher 
education. 

Civilization may be classified under five heads: 
The scientific, the literary, the art or esthetie, the 
institutional, and the religious. Under one of 
these five heads every fact of human aspiration or 
achievement can be found. If education omits 
any one of the five, it cannot be called complete, 
sound, or liberal. 

Let us take them up in their order. I need not 
go into details or amplify. It will be sufficient for 
my purpose before this representative audience to 
give the divisions in bold outline. ° 

Scientific inheritance. Thisis the great field of 
accumulated and classified knowledge—knowledge 
of the heavens, in astronomy; of the earth, in geol- 
ogy; of animal and plant life, in biology; of hu- 
man life, in anthropology; of the laws, properties, 
and forces of matter, in physics, etc. 

Literary inheritance. This is the inviting field 
ofinspirational knowledge—knowledge of the emo- 
tions of the human heart, in lyric poetry; of the 
imagination, in romance; of fervid thought, in elo- 
quence; of more positive knowledge, in prose lit- 
erature, etc. It is what Channing meant when 
he said: ‘‘God be thanked for books. They are 
the voices of the distant and the dead, and make 
us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages. They 
give to all who faithfully use them the society, the 
spiritual presence, of the greatest and best of our 
race.” 

Fésthetic or Art inheritance. This is the 
harmonious field of taste and imagination—of im- 


A PLEA FOR CHRISTIAN EDUCATION. 5 


% t *¥ 


itation of nature, in painting and sculpture; of 
the combinations of harmonious sounds, in music; 
of the splendors of a St. Peters at Rome, in ar- 
chitecture, etc. 

Institutional inheritance. This is the invit- 
ing field of the organized forms of human soci- 
ety—the rise, political struggles, and downfall of 
governments in the past; the rise of new political 
institutions on the ruins of dead empires; the 
tragic struggle of man through the centuries for 
freedom; the birth of democratic institutions— 
how the rights of property, how common law, 
how freedom of the press, how education, how the 
State, how the church, have taken their places in 
organized social and political life, etc. 

Religious inheritance. By this is meant the 
history of the worshiping soul of man through 
the centuries; the history of the church in rela- 
tion to the individual soul, to society, and to God; 
what the church, as a divine institution, has con- 
tributed to human history; the meaning of the 
Scriptures as God’s supreme revelation to man; 
the right answer in terms of the gospel to that 
mysterious problem, has life a meaning? Is it 
worth living? Our efforts and attainments in 
science, in literature, in art, in institutional life— 
have they an end, have they a meaning, and have 
they permanent value? 

One would be indeed blind and deaf who could 
stand in the midst of the majestic flow of the cen- 
turies and not see that the Star of Bethlehem is 
shining with ever-increasing beauty in it all and 
over it all; and who could not, in the present un- 


6 A PLEA FOR CHRISTIAN EDUCATION. 


%* * & 


rest, hear the still small voice saying, “It is I; be 
not afraid?” But there are those who, “having 
eyes, see not,” and who, “having ears, hear not.” 
In the light of the splendid triumphs of Christi- 
anity in civilization, who would dare stand forth 
and say that religion is not one of the fundamen- 
tal, yea, the most fundamental of all human in- 
terests? 

These five—the scientific, the literary, the art, 
the institutional, and the religious—make up 
what we call culture; but the greatest of these 
is the religious, as it has to do with the heart out 
of which are the issues of life. 

Now the scientific or technological schools ex- 
ploit but one of these five elements of culture, 
namely, the scientific, and that only in part. 
Hence, their purpose is not so much to educate as 
to teach one a trade; not so much to make a life 
as to make a living. 

The so-called institutions of liberal learning, 
founded and supported by the State in a democ- 
racy, are restricted to the scientific, the literary, 
the art, and the institutional elements of culture. 
They cannot, in an official way, discuss and util- 
ize the field of religion, or teach the essential 
principles of Christianity. An atheist, an infidel, 
or a Christian has the same legal right to a place 
on their faculties. A limitation at this point is 
fundamental and vital. 

Any one who reads the leading educational 
journals or the new books on education cannot 
fail to be struck with the new and unusual empha- 
sis given, and importance assigned, to religious 


A PLEA FOR CHRISTIAN EDUCATION. 7 


* * * 


instruction in education. Dr. Butler, of Colum- 
bia; Dr. DeGarmo, of Cornell; Dr. Howerth, of 
Chicago, and Dr. Stanley Hall, of Clark, four of the 
leaders in educational thought in America, and 
others, are now pleading, in magazine articles, in 
pamphlets, and in books, for a religious instruc- 
tion in education. They make the appeal, not 
from the standpoint of the churchman, but from 
the standpoint of the sociologist. 

It may seem strange to us that monarchical 
governments like Germany and England have 
made provision for the teaching of the Bible in 
their common schools, but that democracies like 
France and the United States have excluded the 
Bible from their public school system. 

In Germany religious instruction is “systemat- 
ically and thoroughly given. The principal func- 
tion of the German school is officially declared to 
be the making of God-fearing, patriotic, and self- 
supporting citizens. The Germans would no 
more think that religion could be omitted from 
the programme of instruction than that mathe- 
matics or the languages could be left out.” The 
hour for religious instruction is the first one in 
the morning. So completely are the children of 
the German Empire reached in this way, that a 
Sunday school for religious instruction in Ger- 
many is the exception. 

In England schools under ecclesiastical control 
continued to be the sole means of public educa- 
tion down to 1870, when what is known as “board 
schools” were organized by the government. 
Forty-four per cent of the children are now in 


“ 


8 A PLEA POR CHRISTIAN EDUCATION. 


* Ee 


the ecclesiastical schools, and forty-two per cent 
are in the “board schools.” The government 
contributes to the ecclesiastical schools on condi- 
tion that the religious instruction shall be given 
at the close of the day, and that any student who 
may desire to do so can withdraw without impair- 
ing his standing in the school. In the “board 
schools,” which are supported by the government, 
religious instruction is required, but of the unde- 
nominational kind. 

In France and in the United States Protestant- 
ism and democracy have excluded the Bible from 
public education. ‘‘The Protestant reformation 
was the breaking away from one ecclesiastical or- 
ganization, and the consequent formation of many 
sects, groups, parties, or churches. Democracy 
brought with it a conviction that the support and 
control of education by the State is a duty in or- 
der that the State and its citizens may be safe- 
guarded.” These two forces have, therefore, sec- 
ularized the public schools in France and in the 
United States. 

“A judicial decision on this subject [1 quote 
from Butler] of great interest and of far-reaching 
importance, is that rendered in 1890 by the Su- 
preme Court of Wisconsin, in the case of the 
State ex rel. Weiss and others, us. the District 
Board, of School District No. 6, of the city of Ed- 
gerton. In this case the essential question was 
whether or not the reading of the Bible, in King 
James’s version, in the public schools was secta- 
rian instruction, and as such fell within the scope 
of the constitutional and statutory prohibition of 


A PLEA FOR CHRISTIAN EDUCATION. 9 


* £* 


such instruction. In an elaborate and careful 
opinion the court held that reading from the Bi- 
ble in the schools, although unaccompanied by 
any comment on the part of the teacher, is in- 
struction; that since the Bible contains numerous 
doctrinal passages, upon some of which the pecu- 
liar creed of almost every religious sect is based, 
and since such passages may reasonably be under- 
stood to inculcate the doctrines predicated upon 
them, the reading of the Bible is also sectarian 
instruction; that, therefore, the use of the Bible 
as a text-book in the public schools, and the stated 
reading thereof in such schools, without restric- 
tion, has a tendency to inculcate sectarian ideas, 
and falls within the prohibition of the Constitu- 
tion and the statutes.” 

This decision may be taken as representative of 
the view of the large majority of American citi- 
zens. In this condition of affairs the educational 
reformers are beginning to suggest the broaden- 
ing of the Sunday school idea, so as to give on 
or more days in the week to religious instruction 
under a system of instruction organized on the 
same pedagogical principles that apply to the day 
schools. But if we have been, and are still unfor- 
tunate in this respect in our common schools, we 
have been doubly blessed in the field of higher 
education through the large number of great insti- 
tutions that have been organized under private and 
denominational control, and that have stood for 
all the factors of complete culture, namely, the 
scientific, the literary, the art, the institutional, 
and the religious. 


10 A PLEA FOR CHRISTIAN EDUCATION. 


%* * * 


Of the four hundred or more institutions of 
higher learning in America, the technological 
schools excepted, only a small per cent are under 
State control; indeed, nearly half the State univer- 
sities of America are in the South. Where the 
State has founded one college in America, private 
or denominational ,enterprise has founded eight 
or more. 

If the preceding argument is true, two deduc- 
tions must follow: The religious, or to our minds 
the Christian, element in education is the all-im- 
portant, vitalizing, and momentous factor of edu- 
cation, and without this Christian element educa- 
tion is blind and meaningless; second, in a de- 
mocracy an educational institution controlled and 
supported by the State cannot interpret or utilize 
this factor of education. It must follow, there- 
fore, that higher education, if it is to be Christian 
in its nature and aim, must be directed and sup- 
ported by the churches, or by private corporations 
influenced by Christian motives. Education, in 
its true and complete sense, is thus one of the 
most important functions of the churches. 

Now, higher or college education is the most 
important part of education because of its nature, 
and because of the conditions within which it op- 
erates. Its nature, unlike that of the elementary 
education of our common schools, and in good 
part unlike that of secondary education in our 
high schools, is such that it does not deal with un- 
related facts, but with the grouping of facts; not 
with examples so much as with general princi- 
ples; not with the gathering of material so much 


A PLEA POR CHRISTIAN EDUCATION. II 
x * * 


as with the study of the relations of material. 
Some one has said that elementary and secondary 
education is static—that it helps us to hold indif- 
ferently what we have attained without enabling 
us to advance; but that higher education is dynam- 
ic—it enables us not only to hold what we have, 
but to move forward to greater things; it relates 
our knowledge; it constructs new forms; it adds 
new products; hence, promotes progress. Pro- 
gress and higher education are almost interchange- 
able terms. It will readily be seen, therefore, that 
higher or college education is of the utmost im- 
portance on account of its nature. 

Again, it is important on account of the condi- 
tions within which it operates. In college, the 
student is usually away from his home; he is sep- 
arated from the religious influences of his home; 
his student environment is one of active and anx- 
ious, intellectual and spiritual inquiry, not un- 
mixed with doubt; his association with the mas- 
ter minds of the past and present in books and 
magazines makes for him a new world. Incollege 
he dips his oar into a palpitating and sometimes 
stormy sea of thought and spirit, and therefore 
needs, above all things at this period of his life, to 
hear the sweet and strong assurances of the truth 
that fell in tender accents upon the ears of the 
despairing Peter: “It is 1; be not afraid.” 

In the field of elementary, and in good part of 
secondary education, the religious element is fur- 
nished in the home life; hence, while the Bible 
and religious instruction are ruled out of our 
common schools generally in America, it is not a 


12 A PLEA FOR CHRISTIAN EDUCATION. 


txt 


matter of such serious consequences as when they 
are ruled out of our colleges and universities. 
Again, as the nature of education in the ele- 
mentary and secondary stage is not so fraught 
with serious problems and consequences as higher 
education, it will be seen that higher education is, 
in a great measure, a unique field, and is altogether 
a grave responsibility on the churches. This re- 
sponsibility is twofold in its relation: First, as 
related to the perpetuity of the church itself; 
second, as related to the good of society at large 
through the influence of the church. God never 
designed that his churches should rest upon igno- 
rance. The very thought is almost blasphemous, 
for it presupposes the futility of the noble and 
God-given capacities of man’s mind and soul. It 
would make man look through the dull eyes of a 
beast of the field upon the unappreciated and un- 
explored glories of this fair earth and of human 
life, and would belie the intelligence and wisdom 
that stand back of the created universe in their in- 
finite resources and in the harmonious order of the 
whole. Christian intelligence is a necessary basis 
for the perpetuity of the church. It is sufficient 
merely to state the proposition. It needs no dis- 
cussion. Progressive and comprehensive intelli- 
gence, interpreting each new fact and every new 
step of progress, and applying always the stand- 
ards and laws of truth as revealed in Scriptures, 
and as revealed in nature, asa guide to conduct, 
must determine the future of the churches. 
' Jesse Mercer closed his great sermon on educa- 
tion before the Georgia Baptist Convention in 


A PLEA FOR CHRISTIAN EDUCATION. 13 


% %* 


1834 with the words, “The Lord save us from an 
ignorant ministry.” Out of the conviction which 
voiced itself in this utterance, Mercer University 
was born. Jesse Mercer was wise enough to know 
that an ignorant ministry would mean an igno- 
rant church membership, and he was far-seeing 
enough to understand that an ignorant ministry 
and an ignorant church membership would ulti- 
mately destroy, not only the power aud usefulness 
of any church, but would destroy the churches 
themselves that suffer such conditions to prevail. 
The slowly but surely decaying history of what is 
commonly known as the Hardshell Baptist church, 
with its anti-missionary and its anti-educational 
policy, furnishes abundant proof of the truth of 
this proposition. 

Again, if higher Christian education is what we 
believe it to be in its beneficent, quickening, and 
regenerating influence on society at large, the de- 
nomination that fails to perform its duty to soci- 
ety by fostering and supporting such education 
for the public good, will not only injure society 
by what it withholds from it, but will weaken and 
devitalize itself, if not destroy its influence. Jesse 
Mercer had in view this relation of a Christian 
college to society when, as Chairman of the Ex- 
ecutive Committee in 1837, he sent out in a printed 
address in the name of the Convention these 
words: ‘‘Our design is to establish a seminary 
[speaking of Mercer University ] which will meet 
the necessities of the denomination, and at the 
same time promote the general interest of piety 
and intelligence. A seminary that shall aid in sup- 


14 A PLEA FOR CHRISTIAN EDUCATION. 


%* 


plying the country with well-educated young men, 
who will become useful and able teachers, magis- 
trates, jurists, and legislators; a seminary that 
shall extend its fostering care to our young breth- 
ren who may be called by God to the gospel min- 
istry, and may desire an opportunity for thorough 
mental improvement, and thus assist in supplying 
the churches with able pastors, and heathen lands 
with well qualified missionaries of the cross.” 
Now, let us see for a moment how Mercer Uni- 
versity has discharged this high function and ful- 
filled this high purpose outlined by Jesse Mercer. 
Take the first twenty years of its history—from 
the first graduating class in 1841 to the Civil War. 
This period is chosen for convenience, but pri- 
marily because sufficient time has elapsed for the 
graduates of this period to show what they are go- 
ing to do and be. In this period there were 182 
graduates. Among these graduates 38 /eachers, 
and among these teachers 13 college presidents, 
9 college professors, and 5 superintendents of 
schools; 38 ministers, and among them 1 presi- 
dent of the Georgia Baptist Convention for 6 
years, I president for 4 years, 1 secretary of 
the Georgia Baptist Convention for 27 years, 
9 moderators of associations, 8 pastors of large 
city churches, 6 pastors of village churches, and 
II pastors of country churches; 3 missionaries— 
I in the work of State missions, I a missionary to 
the Indians in the West, and 1 to Africa; 4 govern- 
ors—i governor of Texas, and 3 of Georgia; 4 
judges of the superior court; 5 members of the 
National Congress; 16 members of the State Leg- 


A PLEA FOR CHRISTIAN EDUCATION. 15 


x % * 


islature; 43 officers in the Confederate service. 

I have thus taken pains to particularize in good 
measure in order that you might see from the 
record itself how extensive the influence of the 
college has been. The record for the twenty years 
immediately succeeding 1859 will, when sufficient 
time has elapsed to season the graduates for posi- 
tions of responsibility and trust, present an equal- 
ly inspiring record. The remaining twenty years 
or more, which will bring the history of the col- 
lege up to the present, will, in the fullness of 
time, present a still larger and more iuspiring rec- 
ord of service on account of the larger number of 
students and graduates in these later years. 

It must not be forgotten that only about one- 
third of the students who enter college, graduate. 
With eight hundred or more graduates of Mercer 
University, this would mean something like two 
thousand five hundred students during its history. 

The history of Mercer University may be taken 
as a type of the history of our denominational or 
Christian colleges in the South. 

But what of Mercer University at present, you 
ask? The present conditions would justify me in 
saying that the college is animated and controlled 
by high intellectual activity, and guided by sound 
methods of learning; and second, that the spirit- 
ual life of the college is encouragingly and inspir- 
ingly strong, wholesome, and aggressive. 

As an evidence of the first, I present our record 
in the eight intellectual contests in the last four 
years, winning them all with one exception. Such 
results do not come by chance, but must find their 


16 A PLEA FOR CHRISTIAN EDUCATION. 


x & & 


explanation in causes more fundamental. As evi- 
dence of the truth of the second, I present a daily 
twilight prayer meeting with an average attend- 
ance this college year of seventy-five students. I 
present five choice young men who, in the last two 
years, have given themselves to the work of 
foreign missions, and are preparing themselves 
or this work. I present the faculty record of 
nearly four years with practically no questions of 
discipline. 

I have said that higher education is dynamic, 
and contributes to progress. Progress is a neces- 
sity. As marvelous as the stately steppings of the 
century just closed have been, we must make the 
advancing steps of the race still more majestic in 
the century just opening. To stand still for a mo- 
ment would be to retrograde. 

Again, higher education is a permanent inter- 
est. During the centuries of the existence of Ox- 
ford and Cambridge Universities in England, the 
English Government has changed its form many 
times, but in all the political changes—many of 
which have come through the destruction of the 
old order, and which, through fire and blood, have 
evolved the new—Oxford and Cambridge, them- 
selves the source and inspiration of progress, have 
stood calm, serene, and undisturbed amid the tu- 
multuous changes aboutthem. Thousandsof ques- 
tions growing out of human activity and progress, 
and far-reaching in their importance, have been 
settled one by one and put aside; but higher edu- 
cation is one fact of human history that remains 
permanent. As long as life has its problems there 


A PLEA FOR CHRISTIAN EDUCATION. AGA 
* * * 


will be an absolute necessity for the trained mind 
and soul to settle these problems. 

Not only is higher education dynamic in force, 
contributing to progress; permanent and neces- 
sary in interest, guiding and determining human 
history; but the necessity for it is greater to-day 
than ever before, and will be greater to-morrow. 
Life has been steadily, through the centuries, 
moving from the local interest to the universal 
interest, and is now going at leaps and bounds. 
Up through the travail of the centuries the politi- 
cal horizon has been slowly broadened. But with- 
in twenty-four months the United States has 
passed from political exclusiveness to world-wide 
political responsibility. Beginning with the Peace 
Conference at the Hague a short time ago, the na- 
tions of Christendom are to-day formulating for 
their guidance a code of international ethics and 
of international law. 

Again, we have great industrial combinations, 
such as the Standard Oil Company and the recent 
stupendous steel combine, with its billion and a 
quarter of capital—figures which stagger the mind 
without informing it; and the individual manu- 
facturer and the small industrial interest are be- 
ing crowded to the wall. Commercial relations, 
international in their scope, now hold in their 
grasp the peace of mankind. What the new ad- 
justments are to be, no one can yet prophesy. 

Again, we are in a transition period of thought, 
whether we realize it or not. We may fly to the 
ends of the earth, but we cannot escape it. One 
would be dull indeed who could not understand 


18 A PLEA FOR CHRISTIAN EDUCATION. 


* * * 


that we are passing into an era of world-wide pol- 
itics, and into an industrial era, the like of which 
the world has never seen. And one would be 
blind indeed who could not see that the thought 
and heart of the world must enlarge their scope 
accordingly. 

Not only is higher education dynamic in force, 
contributing to progress; permanent and neces- 
sary in interest, guiding and determining human 
history; but higher Christian education is con- 
structive in character. Constructive, because of 
the spirit of service and benevolence it develops. 
It makes man Godlike in proportion as he be- 
comes comprehensive in thought, and Christlike 
in proportion as his life becomes vicarious, and 
the energies of his being are consecrated to ser- 
vice. If at times we are inclined to tremble in 
the face of the multitudinous and momentous 
problems of this age, and cry out in despair as a 
child in the dark, let us remember that the lessons 
of history, as well as of divine revelation, teach 
us that God, in his providence, grace, and truth, 
is in the affairs of this world, and that the divine 
call comes to the nation as well as to the individ- 
ual to accept, through his grace and truth, the 
blessed invitation to become co-workers with him, 
and to go forth to construct and organize human 
affairs in terms of his intelligence and of his 
love. 

I cannot forbear just here to give you in brief 
outline the work of Adiel Sherwood in Georgia, 
as an example of constructive Christian intelli- 
gence, and of great missionary activity and power. 


A PLEA FOR CHRISTIAN EDUCATION. 19 
ee 


Educated at Middlebury College, Vermont, and 
Andover Theological Seminary, he came to Geor- 
gia in 1818. In 1819 he organized a Sunday school 
at Trail Branch Church, near Athens; in 1820, at 
Ruckersville, Elbert County, in the Serepta Asso- 
ciation, he presented a resolution which resulted in 
the formation in 1822 of the Baptist General Asso- 
ciation, afterwards the Georgia Baptist Conven- 
tion. In 1823 he attended the Triennial Conven- 
tion in Washington City, and there introduced a 
resolution urging all the States to organize Con- 
ventions. In a few years this was accomplished. 
From 1824 to 1834 he was Clerk and Treasurer of 
our State Convention. Asa result of one sermon 
in Eatonton in 1827, a religious revival began, 
which spread over three Associations—the Ocmul- 
gee, the Flint, and the Georgia—resulting in the 
Baptism of fifteen thousand converts. In 1828 he 
traveled and preached through forty counties of 
the State. In the same year he established at 
Eatonton a small theological school, and taught, 
among others, Campbell. In 1838 he began a 
manual labor school near Eatonton with twelve pu- 
pils. This led to the adoption of his idea by the 
State Convention in 1833 at Penfield. He offered 
the resolution in favor of theological education at 
Buckhead Church, in Burke County, which resulted 
in establishing Mercer University at Penfield. In 
1837 he attended the formation of the American 
and Foreign Bible Society in Philadelphia. For 
three years he was professor of sacred literature 
in Mercer University. For two years he was Sec- 
retary of the American Mission Association. He 


20 A PLEA FOR CHRISTIAN EDUCATION. 


** 


was pastor, and did much to found and organize 
the churches at Penfield, Greensboro, Monticello, 
Milledgeville, Macon, Griffin, and Greenville. 

I close this part of the discussion with the 
words of another: “ The college gives permanence 
to the institutions, whether of society, of govern- 
ment, or of education, which it controls and sup- 
plies. The ministry cannot perpetuate itself. 
The magistracy cannot educate its own successors 
and so perpetuate itself. The inferior depart- 
ments of education cannot train their own men 
and so sustain themselves. But the college well 
supported will sustain, supply, and perpetuate 
them all. It teaches the teachers, preaches to the 
preachers, and governs the governors. The col- 
lege is at once the keystone of the educational 
system, and the corner stone of our civil and re- 
ligious institutions.” 

But some may say you exalt Christian educa- 
tion and the Christian college out of all propor- 
tion. You doubtless would agree that missions is 
the great work of the churches, yet the inference 
from your argument is to minimize missions. I 
think not. But I shall let others answer you, and 
they shall be witnesses whose judgment is entitled 
to consideration, and whose motive cannot be 
questioned. I shall have them to testify as to the 
truth of the general proposition, ‘‘ education as an 
evangelistic force.” They were all, except the 
last three, present at the great Ecumenical Con- 
ference in New York, April, 1900. Here them as 
they stand forth to give this public testimony: 

Rev. Thomas W. Pearce, missionary to China: 


A PLEA FOR CHRISTIAN EDUCATION. 21 
Ss 


“The opportunity in China is largely for the edu- 
cational missionary.”’ 


Mrs. E. J. Bellerby, missionary to India: ‘‘ Many 
may ask why, when the government provides edu- 
cation as in India, should it be necessary for the 
church to step in? The Christian’s answer is brief, 
and may be summarized in a single sentence: ‘Be- 
cause State education is based upon a system of 
so-called strict religious neutrality.’ ”’ 


Rey. W. T. Sutherland, missionary to India: 
‘“Whenever I go across to India to visit any mis- 
sion, and waut to know the moral and religious 
condition in a particular place, whether the tone is 
high or low, I ask myself is there a training school 
here? If there is, I go toit and get interested in 
the young men and women, and lay my hand upon 
the pulse of that school. That is the heart from 
which the blood goes out to the whole body of the 
church. If it is weak, the whole church will be 
weak.’ 


Rev. George G. Smyth, missionary to China: 
“Christian institutions for higher learning aid 
largely in the general intellectual stirring up which 
is necessary in China, and which seems to be nec- 
essary in every country before Christianity is large- 
ly accepted. Christianity is the religion of the 
living, and not the religion of the dead; and every- 
thing that the Christian church can do to awaken a 
higher and more active intellectual life among the 
Chinese will aid thei in the acceptance of the 
Christian religion.”’ 


Miss Singh, a converted native and a teacher in 
Lucknow College, India: ‘‘It has been said that 
because the gospel is to be preached, therefore en- 
ergy and money and time should not be expended 
on higher education. I plead that because the 
gospel is to be preached, therefore energy, time, 
and money should be expended on higher educa- 


22 A PLEA FOR CHRISTIAN EDUCATION. 
ee 


tion. With all that you have done for us in the 
past, you will never have enough workers for us. 
The only way to get enough workers to meet the 
demands of the field is to train us to do the work 
that your missionaries have done. If you want us 
to be what you are, and to be what Christ intended 
us to be, give us the education that you have had, 
and in time, and with God’s help and grace, we will 
not disappoint you.”’ 


Rev. John Wilkie, missionary to India: ‘‘I re- 
gard the mission college in India as of supreme 
importance. There are forty thousand students in 
the different colleges in India, nearly double the 
number in all the colleges in Great Britain and Ire- 
land. The large portion are educated in non-Chris- 
tian schools in which nothing is done to educate 
the conscience or to meet the spiritual wants of 
man. The result, the larger proportion go out as infi- 
dels. Now, the only means of reaching that class 
in the community in India is by means of the 
Christian colleges and the institutions which have 
been set at work through Christian colleges. We 
have started our college there in order that we may 
influence this large class. In the mission college 
we not only have the best and almost the only 
evangelistic agency that will reach that class of 
young men, but we have the best evangelistic 
agency for reaching all classes in the community.” 


Dr. George Washburn, President Roberts Col- 
lege, Constantinople (a college which, during the 
forty years of its existence, has trained two thou- 
sand young men of fifteen nationalities for Chris- 
tian service in the East): ‘‘If Christianity is to 
hold its own in the East; if the old churches are to 
be won back to spiritual life; if they are to become 
instrumental in teaching Mohammedanism what 
Christianity really is, it must be through the influ- 
ence of trained men; men who know what they be- 
lieve, and why they believe it; men who have suf- 


A PLEA FOR CHRISTIAN EDUCATION. 23 
**¥ * 


ficient knowledge and training to understand and 
to meet the arguments of those unbelievers who are 
now flooding the world with their attacks upon 
Christianity and upon all religions.”’ 

Mr. W. Henry Grant, Secretary Ecumenical Con- 
ference: ‘‘ Those who have not been in the foreign 
field may not fully realize the extent of our school 
work. If you had gone a hundred years ago from 
Yokohoma, across Japan, through China, round 
through the straits, up through India, across Per- 
sia, and down through Turkey, you probably would 
have found more than two or three schools in our 
sense of the word. A few years ago I went pretty 
much over this route. I traveled from fifteen to 
twenty thousand miles in Asia, and visited almost 
daily a Christian school. So you can get from this 
some idea as to the number of schools carried on 
by the missionary societies of the world. I visited 
probably one thousand of these schools. Now, not 
only is the number of these schools great, but their 
possibilities are also great.” 


Rev. Locke Wardlaw, Secretary London Mission- 
ary Society: ‘‘The discussion as to the place of 
higher education as a very important and necessary 
branch of missionary work, is a discussion that has 
practically ended in Great Britain in connection 
with all our missionary societies. The evidence 
has become overwhelming as to the advantage of 
educational work as a great handmaid of the gos- 
pel.”’ 


Rev. W. T. A. Barber, of the Wesleyan Mission- 
ary Society of London: ‘‘ When we lay the founda- 
tion of a new Christian State, we are bound to pro- 
vide for school as well as for church, for teaching 
as well as for worship. The Christian church must 
assert its value in national life by obvious intellect- 
ual as well as moral strength. In cannot live per- 
manently by the initiative and dominance of the 
Western missionary. It will need native pastors, 
who will be true overseers; teachers, who will be 


24 A PLEA FOR CHRISTIAN EDUCATION. 


x & & 


true educators; leaders, who will be true thinkers. 
The Christian high school or college is the ex- 
pression of the church's faith in its own future as 
a permanent factor of the national life.” 


See Luther Rice, a graduate of Williams College, 
as he leaves the foreign field, returns to America, 
travels through the North and the South discussing 
missions and making an effort to organize the work, 
turning at last almost in despair from discourage- 
ments thrown in his way by an untrained and un- 
sympathetic ministry, and giving the remainder of 
his life in founding and fostering Columbian Col- 
lege to provide for a trained ministry. 

See William Carey, 2 man who is often held up 
as an ignorant shoemaker, giving the larger part of 
his missionary career as a professor of Oriental 
languages in Fort William College, establishing a 
printing press, and giving to the East translations 
of the Scriptures in twenty-four different languages, 
and giving to the scholarship of the world several 
learned philological works. 

Hear Dr. Adoniram Judson, a graduate of Brown 
University, who, after nearly forty years of heroic 
sacrifice and service in the foreign field, as he pauses 
with a friend in passing a Christian college in 
America, looks his friend in the face and says: 

‘‘Tf I had ten thousand dollars, do you know 
what I would do with it?”’ 

‘‘ Yes,” replied his friend, promptly, ‘‘ you would 
give it to missions.”’ 

‘“No,’”’? said Judson, ‘‘I would give it to such 
institutions as that, for they are sowing the seed 
corn of the world.’’ 


A PLEA FOR CHRISTIAN EDUCATION. 25 


* Oe 


Verily, verily, these witnesses have a right to 
speak and a right to be heard, and their motive 
cannot be misunderstood. I leave you to say 
whether these general principles in this testimony 
do not apply with force to our situation in Georgia. 
I ask you why it is that our State Mission Board 
and our Home Mission Board, as they turn their 
eyes to the vast mountain region of our State, or 
of our Southland, are beginning to proclaim from 
the house tops that Christian education is an essen-- 
tial factor in an evangelization that has in it the 
elements of growth and power. It behooves us as 
Baptists to inquire how far this principle is true as 
related to our whole situation in Georgia. No, 
brethren, I risk my reputation as a man who loves 
his denomination, and who loves his State, on this 
prophecy: If we, as Georgia Baptists, do not rise 
to a larger appreciation of education as a powerful 
evangelistic force, and to a more aggressive and 
liberal policy in matters educational, we may as 
well begin to make up our minds to see our denom- 
ination decline; to see missions, the great work of 
the churches, decline, and to witness with shame 
and contrition our influence in the State life decay. 

I think I have already shown by clear implica- 
tion, if not by direct statement and argument, what 
our relation as a denomination is to Mercer Univer- 
sity. I close this discussion with a few paragraphs 
as to our responsibility in this relation and in the 
present crisis of the college. 

If Mercer University has performed the high 
function of service to the denomination and to the 
State which we claim for it, then the least that can 


26 A PLEA FOR CHRISTIAN EDUCATION. 
x & ¥ 


be said is that there is a responsibility on us to see 
that its usefulness is not lessened. This is largely 
negative, but, nevertheless, important. More 
money is needed to do even this. First, because 
on account of a change in business conditions in 
the South, money is worth less. For example, 
some of our eight per cent Atlanta bonds are ma- 
turing. This money must be reinvested at four or 
five per cent. Apply this as a general principle to 
our endowment, and you will readily understand 
the necessity of an increase in invested funds in 
order to maintain the present organization. Sec- 
ond, no institution of learning can be said to be 
permanent or free from a crisis, that does not have 
a large enough amount of interest-bearing invested 
funds to protect it in years of financial or business 
depression, when there must necessarily be a fluc- 
tuation in patronage. Increased endowment would, 
therefore, aid in maintaining the present organiza- 
tion and insuring permanency. Our income is in 
round numbers $10,000 from invested funds and 
$9,000 for tuition, but this does not pay running 
expenses. For many reasons we cannot increase 
the tuition. The per cent of income from invested 
funds should be greater than the ratio of $10,000 
to $9,000. The $65,000 we propose to raise this 
college year will meet the present emergencies and 
give a small margin for enlargement. But as a 
mere negative or stand-still life will break down 
sooner or later, there is a larger responsibility on us 
to see that the power and usefulness of the college 
are positively enlarged. 

No institution can be great that fails to recognize 


A PLEA FOR CHRISTIAN EDUCATION. 27 
* * X 


the greatness of modern educational conditions; 
and no institution can hold its patronage, or de- 
serves indeed to hold its patronage, that fails to 
make itself educationally respectable as compared 
with other institutions, or greater still, as compared 
with the true standards of educational method and 
product. In the light of what has been said, our 
failure to enlarge the usefulness of Mercer Uni- 
versity would result in crippling, if not dwarfing, 
every interest to which it is related. The re- 
sponsibility, therefore, is much more than a 
responsibility to the college—it is a responsibil- 
ity to all of the great interests that are related 
to the college, and that are necessarily involved 
in its work. 

Now, as you know, under the direction of the 
Board of Trustees through an Endowment Commit- 
tee, we are trying to raise for the endowment by 
October 1, this year, the sum of $50,000 among the 
Baptists of Georgia. In the event we do this, the 
American Baptist Education Society will give us 
$15,000, making in all $65,000. We come to this 
Convention with at least $20,000 already raised, 
and this amount largely on the cash basis. Much 
has been raised that has not been reported, and 
many churches are now at work on their appor- 
tionment, and many churches not apportioned are 
at work. The committee could not include them 
all, and in its imperfect and hurried work left out 
some of our stronger churches. 

Almost without exception the churches appor- 
tioned have raised their apportionment. Several, 
indeed, have gone beyond. I almost tremble with 


28 A PLEA FOR CHRISTIAN EDUCATION, 


*% X% 


the greatness of the thought, but it begins to look 
as if the contributions to the endowment from our 
Baptist masses in Georgia are about to explode 
the theory which many of us have held that our 
Baptist common folk could not be enlisted in 
their sympathies for Mercer University, and in 
their support of higher education. It begins to 
appear that all that is needed to make this great 
truth an actuality among us in Georgia, is that 
our ministry shall have an intelligent apprecia- 
tion of the college, and a sympathy for the power 
and greatness of Christian education, and that 
they will get their consent to be true teachers and 
leaders of their people in this important work. 
Loving and intelligent instruction, wise, system- 
atic, and co-operative effort, and then a chance to 
give, would bring such results among us in Geor- 
gia, not only for Christian education, but for all 
our denominational enterprises, as almost to 
startle some of us. At the same time the particu- 
lar and special responsibility on our brethren of 
wealth, and on those who are graduates of the 
college, grows with every advancing step with ac- 
cumulating intensity. Let us not forget this. 
While I should like to mention in detail many 
of our churches, especially some of the smaller 
ones and their pastors, who have done nobly in 
the endowment movement, time would forbid. 
But I cannot forbear; I must not fail, indeed, to 
mention one church, the church at High Shoals, 
Ga., a factory church. No one went to see them,. 
no one wrote them a letter, and they were not ap- 
portioned; but they voluntarily swing into line 


A PLEA FOR CHRISTIAN EDUCATION. 29 
* * * 


with a contribution of $75, and claim their share 
in the work, because it is a great enterprise of 
their denomination. 

We do not propose to take a subscription list 
here to-day, or to call for contributions to the en- 
dowment. Such a method would defeat the wis- 
dom of the plans of apportionment, of systematic 
co-operation, and, more than that, would defeat 
the wisdom of going to the churches themselves. 
There the matter must rest, and there the move- 
ment must find its success. I have never had but 
one thought about the result, and that is, we will 
not fail. No, God forbid! So many sacred inter- 
ests are involved that we cannot afford to fail. 
With faith in God and in our brethren, we answer 
with confident emphasis, it can be done, and it 
will be done. Even greater things than we have 
planned or hope for will be accomplished. The 
labor expended in directing the movement has 
been enormous, but it has been done with joy and 
gladness. 

But I must close. In fancy I can see stand- 
ing once more before this convention the stal- 
wart and manly form of our beloved Dr. Gibson, 
of blessed memory. His noble brow betokens 
strength and wisdom; his face is a responsive mir- 
ror to the Christlike benevolence that warms his 
heart, and to the benedictions that fall from his 
lips; his rich, fine eyes are tender and full of beati_ 
tudes; his bosom heaves under strong emotion as 
he speaks to us of missions, the great theme of 
his soul. I hear him say: “Back to the churches! 
back the churches!” We catch up his wise words 


30 A PLEA FOR CHRISTIAN EDUCATION. 
- + 


and ring them forth again to-day. “ Back to the 
churches!’’ And may God guide them into an 
evangelization as broad and deep as his everlasting 
truth, and as comprehensive as the needs of the 
human race. 


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